Putin Crushes Internet Expression

Back in the days when Vladimir Putin was first launching his crackdown on Russian mainstream media, killing and arresting reporters and publishers and seizing or shutting down publications, the Russia apologists rationalized his actions by claiming that the Russian Internet was free and always would be, and would counter any state propaganda. It’s now clear that these statements were made simply ruse to induce the defenders of free speech to drop their guard and allow Putin to take over mainstream media unchallenged. It worked like a charm. And now we can clearly see how utterly false these statements were as Putin systematically exterminates the Runet.

Last week Putin announced that he would ban any Internet business from operating within Russia unless it maintained all of its data inside Russia as well, where Putin can easily control it and have unfettered access to the personal information stored within it. He was already moving to directly regulate bloggers by making them register with the state as soon as they achieved a significant audience share, so Putin is attacking Internet content from both sides at the same time in a vicious pincer movement.

Technology expert Andrei Soldatov says that Putin doesn’t even have to implement the new legal measures, merely passing them into law will deliver a devastating chilling effect throughout the Runet: “The people working for these companies become frightened of what could happen and start being cautious, they start voluntarily cooperating with the authorities.”

Such collaboration with evil is a consistent theme throughout Russian history. During the time of Stalin, Russians could be relied upon to turn in their neighbors in hopes of winning the favor of the totalitarian regime for themselves, and not once during his decades in power did Stalin ever face a significant public backlash even as he murdered millions in his gulags.

Indeed, Putin’s Goebbels, Dmitri Kiselev of state TV, openly (and proudly) admits that Putin is the new Stalin. Putin has certainly adopted Stalin’s messianic outlook, recently declaring that he feels he has the right to intervene anywhere in the world on behalf of “those people who consider themselves part of the broad Russian community. They may not necessarily be ethnic Russians, but they consider themselves Russian people.” And he is even pushing forward a host of regulations to restrict artistic speech, exactly the same as Stalin embraced.

Conventional journalism capitulated to Putin long ago. But the Internet was supposed to be impervious to such attacks. That’s what we were consistently told as Putin placed broadcast television and newspapers in a neo-Soviet chokehold. In fact, it was all nonsense. Putin has easily moved to crush Internet expression and has seen little if any opposition. The main defender of Internet freedom, Alexei Navalny, has been prosecuted and is currently languishing under house arrest, banned from expressing himself the Internet in any way.

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